French Knots

Cake helps

The children had an own clothes day at school last week to raise money for Haiti but wanted to do something themselves. The decided on a cake sale on Friday after school, we have a captive audience as we live next to their school, so I envisaged 150 children eager for cake - that's pretty much what happened!

( Not our actual fairy cakes!) 

The children made posters to stick up in the front window and printed out adverts to give out in the playground, then helped make about 75 fairy cakes, 30 cornflake cakes, a banana loaf and 40 oat biscuits! At 2.30 it started to snow(aarrgghh) but by 3pm it was sunny so I set up the table in our drive and luckily some kind friends dropped off more cakes. My Little Helper and The Big Sister dashed out of school, climbed over our wall and the frenzy began! All the cakes were bought within 12 minutes, we could have sold 3 times as many and so many generous people said ' keep the change'. Selling each cake at 20p the children thought they might make twenty or thirty pounds but when they counted it up they had £62.76! Well done my darlings, I'm so proud of you for wanting to help and organising it so well.

The money has been donated to a charity Pebbledash blogged about, Shelterbox . The children thought the idea of sending a box with tent, blankets, tools and colouring books was very sensible and I like the idea that they and their friends know what they have contributed to. It makes it seem more real to a 6 and 10 year old, knowing what their money is helping to send to Haiti and how it will help a family just like ours.  

Boasting over!

By George....she's got it!

I have been thinking of learning to crochet for ages and this week the stars aligned

Pip over at Meet me at Mikes has spent ages putting a set of lessons together so even a total beginner can learn how to do a granny square, there are detailed written instructions and videos to follow so you can't go wrong! So I've been grannying like mad!

   These are my ice cream grannies using some cotton handknit that I bought ages ago, it's nice to use but some of them are a bit wonky and the ' holes' seem quite big. I might use a smaller hook than suggested next time to see if that helps and hopefully my tension will improve as I make more of them.

  So THANK YOU Pip!! That's one of my goals for 2010 underway and it's not even the end of January yet, the other goals of improving my health and fitness - well I've still got 11 months to work on those!

Whoosh....!

That was last week whizzing by! Days disappeared in a blur of coughing, runny noses, conjunctivitus and the nights did too! We all need some brighter weather and fresh air to blow the germs away.

Just when I needed it an amazing parcel arrived in the post

 Ooh so many exciting treasures!

look at the sweet little bird and the wonderful handmade magnets. The pretty beads were the subject of one of my 365 photos, interesting shapes and colours. And the little silver flower - have a closer look

A tiny little button! I think I'm going to stitch it onto my jacket lapel for the time being to enjoy it but have plans to use it as the centrepiece of a fabric brooch. All from the talented  Emma of Silverpebble as I was a lucky runner up in her recent give away. She makes the most beautiful jewellery, take a look at her shop where she sells her unique and covetable designs. 

Thank you all for your photography advice, I've been trying to find time to try out different shots, if the rain would stop I'm sure it would help to be able to take some pictures in daylight, or what passes for it at this time of year. I've been reading about how to make a cheap lightbox which might help with dull days.No doubt by the time I get round to making it the summer will have arrived!

Project 365

Well 20 days in I've taken photos everyday and am learning about my limitations. The weather is a huge factor in how a picture turns out, adding interest, shadows or all over grey dependent on the weather!

I'm struggling with depth of field and would love to be able to take a picture like this last, amazing shot. I've even read the manual! To have the contrast between the sharp focus and the rest of the picture makes it an interesting photo. So that's what I'm practising this week as my photos are either all in focus or all blurred! 

The project 365 group on flickr is full of amazing and inspiring work as well as pictures from people like me who are at the beginning of their journey with their camera. I hope I'm still enjoying it at Day 220!  

Haiti

The news is too terrible to believe, such dreadful pictures, such awful despair.  Our natural reaction is to want to help the people suffering still further from the effects of the earthquake. To be unable to get medical help for your injured child, to have lost all that you hold dear is unimaginable. 

Pebbledash has an excellent link to a charity  Shelterbox who provide a tent and other practical equipment for a family who have lost everything.

Craft Hope has set up an etsy shop to allow crafters to sell items to raise money.

Rebecca Sower returned from Haiti only days before the earthquake having met some amazing people. She brought back many of their handmade items and has set up an etsy shop to sell them on behalf of her Haitian friends Haiti By Hand.

Melting

My world is starting to peep out from under it's blanket of white, there is a drip, drip, drip outside the window and the poor snowman's nose has fallen out. I might venture out myself, I've actually enjoyed being at home the last week or so and it's been great for saving money - no shopping trips = no spending, which is good for the bank balance in January.

 Here's a little picture I missed off my last post. The Baby Brother was given a present wrapped in such a lovely wrapping paper, sweet, naive drawings of animals. I copied them with my magic water soluble pen onto linen and embroidered them. As the piece of fabric I'd used was too small for the frame ( great planning) I stitched some stripy fabric top and bottom to make it larger before I laced it onto the cardboard for framing. I'm rather pleased with the effect.

Isn't this amazing?! A sweet little house hand stitched in felt, just look at the size of the leaves in the wreath on the door! Made for me by the talented Amanda. Talented and currently bed bound with flu poor love.

With the children finally back at school and Mr FK back at work the house seems rather empty this week. While The Baby Brother has his nap I've been exploring and have some 'new to me' finds to share - have you read these?

A collection a day

Little Suitcase

Once Wed

The Prairie Girl

I know you'll need a few more blogs for your Bloglines! Well the pc has crashed twice while I've been typing this so I think it's a hint to go and tidy up the house a bit or at least run the hoover round so The Baby Brother doesn't eat too much fluff when he's rolling about on the floor!

Handmade with love

I decided last year, or maybe the year before, to make as many gifts as possible to use some of my fabric stash and to enjoy creating something from things I already have. So for Christmas I made -

A dinky little quilt and pillow set for dolls or teddies, I made an appliqued bag to keep them in. Love the floral fabrics which I have had for ages and only use a little at a time as I love them!

I think I saw this on Martha Stewart, appliqued dresses mounted on a backing fabric but not stitched on the shoulders. You can use the hair clips to peg the dresses onto the ribbon washing line.

I had the plan for this in my head for ages, in fact I remember painting the frame on a sunny September day in the garden.

At the Baby Brother's Christening I drew round hands, some of my family live at the other end of the country so I had to grab them while I had the chance!

   I made the pattern then stuck it to the window to trace onto the fabric and made quite a few of these as I thought it was a lovely way to freeze time while the children are little.

 
A quilt for My Little Helper, just right for snuggling under on the settee, jeans cut into 5 inch squares and sewn with the seams on the right side.Snipping the seams then washing and tumbling gives a great textured finish.

 

A recycled bedspread made a perfect soft backing and it has been popular so far.

ok I promise not to mention the C word again till November!

Have a safe and snowy weekend, hope you can hole up at home and keep warm!x 

Clearing the decks

With the arrival of 12th Night it was invigorating to pack up the Christmas decorations and have a quick tidy up. It had to be quick as the school is still closed so the children are at home and grumbling at each other!

The main job is getting the tree outside with out sprinkling too many pine needles everywhere. I love a real tree and couldn't imagine Christmas without the tree scenting the air. As we have wooden floors downstairs it's fairly easy to brush up but the key to making the job easy is a duvet cover. I use an old king size one and drape it over the top of the tree, tucking in the lower branches all the way round and then do up as many of the buttons on the bottom of the duvet cover as I can.

Once you have got the triffid outside it can be recycled.

It feels like we've moved into a bigger house now all the knick knackery is put away and most of the furniture is back in it's usual place, just need to get life back into it's usual rhythm and the year will feel like it's under way.   

Snow in suburbia

We woke up to 8 inches of snow, well when I say woke up I mean the time we got up as it was morning as opposed to the other times in the night we were woken up by The Baby Brother ( pesky teeth)!

Happily the school was shut as the staff couldn't get in so we spent the day snowballing and sledging. A bonus day, an extra holiday.

I've never seem so much snow here, light and fluffy just right for enjoying. Goodness knows what it'll be like after it's frozen tonight though.

 
With a well stocked pantry and freezer we don't need to go any where, school is closed tomorrow too so we'll be in front of the fire toasting our toes.

He'll have to stay outside though, don't want a flood on the floor.   

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you all, hope 2010 brings you peace and happiness. We had a very quiet New Year and were only up at midnight as The Baby Brother woke us up at 5 to midnight! We watched some fireworks from the top floor window and also saw about 100 of those floating lantern thingies that have some sort of little candle in them. It looked like a very atmospheric alien invasion!

I can hardly believe I've been blogging for 3 years, when I started at Christmas 2007 I wondered what I'd find to write about and here I am many posts later still recording our lives and my inspirations. Thanks so much to everyone who visits and comments, the friends and community I've found here have been so important as life as a stay at home Mum can be a bit isolating. To find so many wonderful people with the same passions and interests as me has been amazing.

Domesticali posted the other day about the 365 project and I thought I'd do it, taking a photo each day seems like a good way of doing something everyday just for me, learning how to use my camera ( which has been on my goal list for the last 2 years) and an encoragment to notice things more.

  Here is the first one, trying out the super macro setting on an ornamental cabbage. Let's hope I can keep it up to the end of the year!

Ali also mentioned Tumblr, and like a stalker or that girl in Single White Female I went to have a look at that too! It's a place to collect lovely pictures, so as someone who has a box full of pictures torn from magazines and a folder on the pc full of inspiration pictures it seemed perfect for collect more pictures of lovliness. Having been French Knots here,  on flickr , Etsy and delicious for years I was gutted to find someone had nabbed that name a couple of months ago on Tumblr! So I'm Flora McFlimsy instead! Did you read the books when you were little? I still have them upstairs wonderful pictures and sweet tales. And worth a fortune it seems from the search I did to find you a picture!  Too lovely to sell though! I'm looking forward to exploring Tumblr and building up a collection of amazing pictures and quotes.

I don't make resolutions as they are always broken by the end of the first week of January but I like a few goals to guide me. I love the start of the year, blank and waiting to be filled with whatever we wish, a new start and a fresh opportunity.

I never got round to learning to crochet last year ( something to do with a new baby perhaps?!) so that's one for this year. I also want to work on myself, my health and fitness. I've not really bounced back from having The Baby Brother and have splitty nails, eczema and odd low level niggles so I want to boost my immunity and general well being. Healthy eating and less wine would be a good start I'm sure......well one the Christmas Quality Street and been finished!!